Dentist suspended over online paraphilia addiction

A Brisbane dentist who was addicted to cyber sex has been suspended from practising for 12 months.

Trevor David Cullen, 50, had pleaded guilty in the Health Practitioner’s Tribunal to unsatisfactory professional conduct.

In 2004, Cullen was sentenced to an 18 months wholly suspended sentence after pleading guilty in the District Court in Brisbane to one charge of attempting to procure a child under 16 for an indecent act and two of attempting to taking a child under 16 for immoral purposes.

He was caught in a police sting in December 2000, when a police officer posed as a 12-year-old girl.

In explicit internet conversations Cullen promised to teach her how to kiss and masturbate, and he twice turned up to meetings he had arranged, after originally meeting her in a sexually oriented chat room.

Tribunal chairman, District Court Judge Michael Forde, in handing down the 12-month suspension, today said according to psychological reports, Cullen was not a pedophile.

Instead, he said he was addicted to paraphilia, which meant he was obsessively dependent on fantasy sex for erotic arousal, in this case via the internet.

Cullen, who has not practised as a dentist for 12 months, is studying a Bachelor of Applied Science.

His 12-month suspension by the tribunal is effective immediately and he will be subject to a raft of conditions for three years, including that he be chaperoned whenever treating a child.